Monday
by fadsy
Summary: It's Monday morning, and Jan has to leave.


She wakes to the wailing of the alarm on the nightstand opposite her side of the bed. Four fifteen in the morning, and she'll have to leave by five to have even a chance of making it to work on time. Rush hour in the city is hell. Spending time in Scranton makes her realize she might not mind packing up and moving to the suburbs someday. She doesn't let her mind wander there often, of course, but mornings like these push those thoughts straight to the forefront of her mind. This particular neighborhood is quiet, still. Peaceful. She likes this place (him) more than she cares to admit. 

He grunts into the pillow they're currently sharing, swatting his left arm blindly in the direction of the alarm clock, missing it by a couple of feet at least. It's really not fair to deprive him of so much sleep. He never complains (quite the opposite, actually), but she feels a bit guilty anyway.

Propping herself up on her elbow, she stretches over him and flicks the button on the alarm, then lets herself fall immediately back under the warm blankets. Just five more minutes, and then she'll get up. Really.

He's still mostly asleep, but his arm wraps instinctively around her waist once again, pulling her close. She doesn't fight it. They've only been doing this for a few weeks, yet they've already fallen into a pattern that feels frighteningly natural. She had anticipated pure awkwardness, but somehow he just gets it. He gets her. And as much as she knows she should fight this thing, whatever it is, being like this (being with him) just feels too damn nice. She's letting herself indulge a bit these days, so far with surprisingly pleasing results. Reality will still be there waiting to suck her back into its abyss when she's ready for it. Now is not the time. She's not done being irresponsible (happy) yet. She just wants five more minutes (hours, days, weeks, lifetimes).

She wakes again in a panic, positive she has just slept the whole morning away. Pushing his arms away and shooting straight up in bed, she releases an immense sigh of relief. It's barely four thirty, and she still has time if she hurries.

She reaches over him, grabbing her robe from the bedpost where it hangs. The tie accidentally brushes over his face as she pulls it over her shoulders, causing him to blink rapidly and puff some air from his lips, as if he thinks he's just eaten a bug.

"Sorry," she whispers, touching her palm to his cheek. "I was trying not to wake you."

"What time is it?" He stares up at her, confused and groggy.

"About four thirty. I have to go soon. Go back to sleep."

"Mmmmmf," he grunts, tugging at her arm and pulling her down on top of him, wrapping both arms all the way around her. "Don't go."

She hates when he does this. She's already late and he's challenging her self-control. They both know she has very little of that around him. Damn him.

"I have to go to work," she tells him mock-forcefully, pushing him away and sitting back up.

"Call in," he says simply, as if it's just that easy.

"I can't just call in, Michael."

She swings her legs over the side of the bed, feeling around for her slippers. She finds his instead, and though they're nearly twice the size of her feet, they'll do. She stands up, feeling a little wobbly and very sleep deprived, and glances back toward the bed. He's lying there shirtless, his hair a mess, rubbing his eyes and smiling at her. Her head is telling her to hurry and shower and get on the road, but everything else is telling her to jump back under the covers and give him a proper "good morning."

"Come on, Jan. When's the last time you had a day off?" His elbow is propped under his head now, and she'll be damned if that isn't an incredibly sexy pose.

"I had about five consecutive days off fairly recently when I agreed to accompany you to Jamaica, remember?" Her voice is stern, but she can't help but smile at the memory of their Jamaican sex romp. Even she has to admit that she needed that pretty badly, and has moved beyond pretending to regret it.

"Okay, fine," he says defeated, letting his head sink back down to the pillow. "But I'll miss you."

She'll miss him too. She lives for the weekends now. She lives for the quiet Saturday nights curled up on the couch with him and his dumb movies. She lives for not having to sleep alone in her cold, lifeless apartment. She lives for the beautiful domesticity of drinking coffee and reading the paper together in bed on Sunday mornings. She doesn't even mind when he insists on reading all of the comic strips aloud to her. She won't, of course, tell him any of this. As much as she likes to ignore reality, its presence is still always looming.

"I know," she sighs, unable to muster a better response, and shuffles into the bathroom in her oversized footwear, shutting the door gently behind her.

Somehow, without her even noticing, little bits of her presence have crept into his home. She has inhabited a drawer in his dresser and some space in his closet, reasoning that it just makes more sense for her to get dressed there and not have to stop by her place on the way to work. He keeps a pint of her favorite ice cream and a box of her favorite cereal (though he insists it tastes like cardboard) in the kitchen. Her favorite shows are programmed to record weekly on his DVR, and he never deletes anything until she has a chance to watch it, trusting that she'll come back soon. And she always does.

The bathroom is no exception to the rule. Her toothbrush has a permanent home next to his, there's a box of tampons under the sink, and the shower contains various bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body washes. He never moves anything, regardless of how long she's away. It's as if time stands still at Michael's condo, further contributing to her sense of complete escapism when she's there. Never in her life has she been so able to shut out the external world so easily. It's dangerous.

She starts the shower, jumping back slightly when the cold water hits her arm. It's far too early to be awake, and if she didn't feel such an obnoxious obligation to her job, she'd gladly slither back under the covers and curl up next to him for a few more hours (or days, or weeks, or years).

She's in and out of the shower quickly, both because the water hasn't had sufficient time to heat up, and because she's very aware that she's running late. Reaching for the towel hanging closest to her on the rack, she wraps it around herself, takes and inadvertent whiff and realizes it smells like him. This is the kind of thing that should probably repulse her, using someone else's dirty towel, but somehow it doesn't. It's even kind of comforting, in a strange way. She buries her face in it for a second, relishing the feeling of closeness to him.

Emerging from the bathroom with a comb in her damp hair, she glances toward the bed, expecting to find him sprawled out and snoring. But he isn't there. Her eyes dart around the room, squinting in the darkness, wondering where he could possibly have gone.

"Michael?" She calls out to him, receiving no answer.

Flicking on a lamp and glancing again at the clock, she decides she simply doesn't have time to investigate, and proceeds to get dressed. Her suit hangs in a plastic bag, fresh from the dry cleaners. She opens the bag to find that hanging neatly next to her suit are his infamous FunJeans, pressed and ready for whatever fun may befall them next. She sighs, realizing that somewhere along the way, dry-cleaned jeans stopped seeming bizarre. Her orientation into Michael Scott Land is officially going a little too smoothly. If she weren't running so horrendously late for work, she'd take a moment to panic a little.

She dresses quickly, and is busy fiddling with her earrings when she's startled by a cold hand on her shoulder. She turns around to find him extending a travel mug of coffee out to her.

"Hey," he says with a smile. "I know you're running late, so I filled your mug up for you."

Taking the mug from him and putting it down on the nightstand, she smiles and reaches for his hands.

"Michael, you're freezing." She rubs her hands on his, attempting to warm them up.

"Yeah, I couldn't find my gloves. It's effin' cold outside, Jan! You have your heavy coat, right? Otherwise you can borrow something of mine."

"Why were you outside at five in the morning?"

"Well, I couldn't let my lady love freeze to death scraping her windshield off in this weather. It snowed a lot last night. Brrr!" He smiles at her earnestly, as if he genuinely didn't mind standing out in the snow without gloves, just so she wouldn't have to.

"You scraped my windshield for me?"

"Yeah, of course. I feel kinda bad for not moving my car out last night so you could park in the garage. I didn't even think of it until I looked out the window this morning and saw all the snow."

"Wow," she blinks a few times, trying to remember a previous instance of anyone being quite so chivalrous to her. She can't come up with anything. "That's very sweet, Michael, but you didn't need to do that. You should be asleep. You don't have to wake up for a couple more hours."

"Eh, no biggie. I wanted to get up to say bye anyway."

"Oh," she sighs at the realization that she really has to leave.

She squeezes his hands once more before letting go, and picks the coffee mug back up, putting her nose to the opening. It's a familiar scent.

"I made that hazelnut one you like," he says proudly. "With just a little bit of milk. That's how you like it, right?"

"Thanks," she smiles, her heart fluttering just a little when she catches the hopeful glint in his eye. "It's perfect. Walk me out?"

She takes his still-cold hand, guiding him behind her as she makes her way down the stairs. He helps her with her coat, and hands her purse to her as she fiddles with her scarf. Their eyes meet, and there's an obvious tinge of sadness in his expression. She'd be fooling no one if she acted like she wasn't just a little bit sad too. As much as she wants to fight her feelings for him, mornings like this make that damned near impossible. The truth is, when she's not with him, she misses him. She is definitely in trouble.

Feeling her resolve to walk out the door quickly fading, and acknowledging that she's almost certainly going to be tardy for work already, she decides to make this a brief goodbye.

"Okay, well, I'd better be off. Thanks for a fun weekend, Michael." She smiles at him, with just a slight trace of her boss voice slipping through.

"Yeah. Thanks for coming," he replies, his posture stiffening just a bit at the tone she is now projecting. "Will I see you next weekend?"

She can't help but soften at the hopeful look in his eyes, wondering to herself how in the hell they ended up here together like this. She's still not really sure what they're doing, or where it's going, or where she wants it to go, but for now, this is working. It's working better than she ever imagined was possible.

"Sure, I'll drive down after work on Friday, definitely," she grins at him and leans in to kiss him softly on the lips, lingering a little longer than she originally planned. She breaks the kiss first, resting her forehead on his for a second before stepping out the door. He follows her out.

"Bye, Michael."

"Bye, Jan. Call me when you get there, okay?"

She sinks into the car seat, nodding as he shuts the door and steps back, waving. Watching him watch her, she suddenly finds herself fighting back tears, wanting nothing more than to jump back out and run to hug him.

_No, this is ridiculous. Put the car in reverse and go to work. You'll be back soon. _

Listening to her head, she backs the car out of the driveway, waving back at him. He's still standing there, watching her drive away, as if he doesn't want to miss a single second with her.

She only makes it a couple of blocks before the tears really start flowing. What the hell is wrong with her? She veers off to the curb and parks the car, attempting to pull herself together. She's come and gone from his condo many times now, but it's never felt like this before. She's always been able to make a clean break, feeling a little disappointed, of course, but never being urged to cry about it. Not even close.

Could she possibly be developing real feelings for this man? The same man whose literature collection, in its entirety, consists of twenty-five joke books and multiple stacks of comics? The same man who eats a Flintstones vitamin with his breakfast of bacon and Count Chocula cereal every morning? The same man who will take more than a week to sign a stack of expense reports because they're boring?

The same man who got out of bed at four thirty to scrape the snow off her car and make hazelnut coffee for her. The same man who dry-cleans her suits without being asked. The same man who put himself on the line to save her job when she was about to get fired. The same man who, completely sure she'd shoot him down, had the courage to call and ask her to come to Jamaica with him just because he wanted her there. The same man, the only man, who was every truly there for her when she just needed a shoulder to cry on.

She digs around in her purse for her cell phone, her fingers trembling both from the cold and her nerves.

Half-expecting a person to answer the phone, not fully realizing it's five in the morning, she's relieved when she's sent straight to voicemail.

After leaving a brief message excusing herself from work, she shuts the phone, exhaling deeply as she tosses it onto the passenger seat and swings the car around. Following her instincts has worked thus far.

Racing through the door as fast as she can, she tosses her coat and purse on the couch and runs up the stairs, pausing in the doorway of the bedroom. He's back in bed, sleeping, his face buried in her pillow.

She sheds her suit and her stuffy button-down shirt, tossing all of the freshly laundered clothing haphazardly to the floor. Climbing into bed, she clutches him from behind, surprised when he doesn't even flinch, but instead pulls her arms tightly around him and clasps his hands around hers. Is it possible that he knew she'd be back?

They lie there silently for a moment, her cheek pressed to his back, before he rolls over to face her.

"You came back," he says quietly, sincerely.

"Yeah," she says plainly, unsure of how to explain her near meltdown in the car and her incomprehensible attraction to him that will surely ruin her life (or perhaps make it worth living again).

He nods, smiling, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her gently on the forehead. Apparently nothing else needs to be said. She ducks her head into his chest and scoots as close to him as she can, needing desperately to close the gap between them.

Reality can wait just one more day.


End file.
